


Soft and Sweet

by avislightwing



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Female Friendship, First Dates, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, I use actual dialogue from ACOMAF, POV First Person, Pining, Recovery, Well... Mostly, from when I still had the books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 10:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13996533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avislightwing/pseuds/avislightwing
Summary: When Feyre comes to the Night Court, she's been worn down to a shadow of herself. Mor knows what that feels like, and opens her heart to the newly-turned High Fae - and as she begins to recover, Feyre finds her own heart opening in turn.





	Soft and Sweet

**Author's Note:**

> Almost forgot I had this in my drafts. So here, months later, have some fluffy Feymor. (This fandom's never going to let me go completely, it seems.)

I knew I was doomed the moment my cousin dragged Feyre Archeron into our lives, kicking and screaming.

Well – not exactly kicking and screaming, but definitely protesting. That’s how I saw her the first time:  face twisted into a scowl, glaring at my cousin. She took my breath away. Not that she was anything special, really; a few freckles, a sharp-boned face with a thin, stubborn mouth, thick honey-brown hair, grey-blue eyes that looked like the ocean after a storm. But I could see the trembling of her chin, the shadow in those eyes that spoke of a prey instinct she hasn’t shaken.

“Hello, hello,” I said brightly, smiling at her. I saw her eyes flick over me as she tugged lightly at the hem of her own peach blouse. Spring (and the mortal realm, for that matter) had such different fashions than we did. Just one more thing to make her feel uncomfortable and out of place.

“Feyre,” Rhys said, “meet my cousin, Morrigan. Mor, meet the lovely, charming, and open-minded Feyre.”

I strode over to her, and as I did so, my senses took in more details – the slight boniness of her frame, the scent of vomit clinging to her like an evil spirit. “I’ve heard so much about you,” I say warmly. Not a lie.

She got to her feet, holding out a hand for me to shake, as if unsure what else to do. It was a stupid idea – on so many levels – but I instinctively stepped past the hand, wrapping my arms around her in a firm hug. Under the smell of sickness, she smelled like pine branches and something slightly sweeter I couldn’t identify.

I released her quickly, before she could grow uncomfortable. I spent the rest of breakfast filling the tense space with light, bubbling words, hoping they would slip into her like champagne, soothing and sweet and relaxing.

“Whenever you want company,” I said as she started to leave with Rhys, “give a shout.”

She nodded without looking at me. I, however, gazed at the doorway long after she had left it.

*****

Feyre didn’t ask for my company, that day or the day after. In fact, not at all that week.

“Not a word from her,” I told Cassian one night, sprawled on the couch after a long day of meetings with the sub-governors of Velaris about the new spice tax. “Not one. I thought she might’ve liked the company.”

One of his wings flicked at me from where he lay on the carpet, warming them by the fire. “Relax, Mor. Rhys is probably keeping her too busy to even think about you. Or anything else,” he added.

“I suppose.” I closed my eyes, letting the dancing flames paint warm shapes in the darkness. Rhys had mentioned she liked to paint. I’d never painted. I’d never even tried, unlike Amren the one time at the cabin. I couldn’t talk to her about that. Besides, she likely thought of me as the enemy. I couldn’t blame her; she was still Tamlin’s fiancée, after all.

All the same, all I can see when I close my eyes is _her_.

*****

And then came that day.

When I got to the Spring Court’s manor, she was already out of control. The servants were fleeing, the guards as well, and I didn’t see so much as a glimpse of Tamlin or Lucien. I stepped through her darkness and wrapped my arms around a body that felt fragile and brittle against me, and carried her out of that nightmare.

 _You’re free,_ I whispered as I brought her home. _You’re free._

*****

It takes her a week to appear in my doorway.

She looks like shit – more so than she had when Rhys had first fetched her. Her eyes are hollow with weariness, and her angles are too sharp. My heart aches for her. I know what it’s like to be carved down until you don’t even feel like a full person.

“Hi,” I say, sitting down on my bed. “How… are you feeling?”

“Awful,” she mumbles, not meeting my eyes. I wait, and after a moment, she steps inside the room, closing the door behind her. Then she makes a noise that sounds like she’s trying to laugh when she’s forgotten how. “I must seem… pretty pathetic to you.” She darts her eyes over me, and I know what she sees. I’m wearing a long, light skirt, a clean rose-colored blouse. I washed my hair this morning, so it’s in soft curls and smells like jasmine, the roots only just showing. My body, though scarred where she can’t see, looks healthy.

I know she sees this because I remember aching at the thought of a body of my own that I could enjoy, not just use as a tool, present as a weapon.

“No,” I say quietly. “You don’t. Trust me.”

She must hear the honesty in my voice, the truth I can speak when I wish, because she slowly walks into the room, sitting on the edge of the chair. “I should. This is the first day I’ve been out of bed.”

I nod. I want to tell her that when Azriel first fetched me from the Autumn Court border, I stayed in bed for a full month healing, and then another month because I couldn’t bear to face what I’d gone through to escape – to be free. I want to tell her I smashed the mirror in my room, that I chopped all my hair off and kept it shorn as close to my head as possible for a century and a half. I want to tell her that I don’t judge her for being an absolute fucking mess, and that she deserves to be a mess.

I don’t know how to say any of it, though, so I don’t.

“Thanks,” she mumbles, dragging a slippered toe across the diagonal designs in my rug. “For getting me out.”

“Of course,” I say. Then I smile at her, and she looks up at me.

I see something spark in her eyes. I don’t know whether it’s tears, or relief, or resentment. It could be any one of those. But it’s something, and my smile widens out of instinct.

“Morrigan?” she says, and her voice shakes. “I… Rhys wants me to do something. For him. I don’t know. I can’t. I _can’t_ , Mor. I want to – I’ve spent the last couple months sitting on my ass doing nothing – but I can’t be what he needs me to be right now. What do I do?”

I know Rhys’s plans, the desperate machinations he’s fiddled with concerning Feyre and the Cauldron and Hybern. I know he was depending on her. That’s not what she needs to hear right now, though.

“Feyre,” I say. “He’s not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. And… you don’t have to be anything but what – who – you are right here, right now.”

“I’m a mess,” she says.

“Maybe,” I say. “Look. You need to do what’s right for you. That’s what I’m going to say. And I’ll back you up no matter what.”

“Thanks, Morrigan,” she says.

“Mor,” I tell her. “You can call me Mor.”

*****

She decided to work with us against Hybern, as much as she could, and I was so proud of her. I could see her getting better, little by little. She didn’t smell of vomit anymore, and after a month and a half, she was starting to look healthier:  there was a sheen to her hair, she’d put on some weight, the dark circles under her eyes had lightened to grey most days.

I’ve told her about Velaris, about how much I loved it. I’ve told her a bit of my own past – carefully. I didn’t want to trigger her own trauma. I’ve told her stories – silly ones, about me and Cassian and Azriel, about me and Rhys, dozens of tiny things meant to lighten her heart. I never knew whether it worked, but one night, she appears in my doorway again.

“Feyre!” I say, bounding to my feet, a smile spreading across my face. “I haven’t see you in a few days.”

“Been training with Cassian,” she says.

“Yeah? How’s that been? He’s a pretty hard taskmaster.”

“Good,” she says, and she means it. There’s something different about her today; I’m not sure what it is. It’s good, though. I know that much. “I… Mor?”

“Yeah?”

“I was wondering.” She stops, tugs at the edge of her blouse. “I was… would you… I’d like to see Velaris,” she finishes awkwardly.

My heart swoops. Since the day I carried her out of the Spring Court, I’d taken the tiny piece of myself that ached at the sight of her and put it away carefully, but at those words, it unfolds in its full splendor. “You’re asking me to take you out on the town?” I tease.

She blushes blotchily, and nods. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah. I am.”

“I’d love to,” I say sincerely. “What were you thinking?” I can’t take her to Rita’s. Maybe at some point, but not tonight. Dancing and drinks don’t really seem to be what she’s about yet.

“Could you just show me around?” she asks. “Your favorite places, I guess. I’ve never seen… a city? Not a fae one.”

“You want to go now?” I ask.

“I don’t want to interrupt if you’re –”

“Not at all,” I say, then laugh as I realize I’m the one who just interrupted her.

“Okay.”

I slip on a pair of soft-soled, comfortable shoes and lead the way out of my room. “I’ll give you the grand tour,” I say, linking my arm with hers as we make our way into the street.

And I do. We walk around the city, slow and steady, for two hours, and I point out all my haunts. I point out Rita’s, still quiet as it’s not yet evening; I show her my favorite tailor’s; we skirt the Rainbow, though she doesn’t want to go in. (I can’t blame her.) As the sun starts to go down, painting the sky in a marvelous tapestry of gold and magenta and orange, I buy us my favorite treat:  snow from the mountains, kept cold with magic, drizzled with citrus syrup. We sit on a bench at the bank of the river and watch the sun set over the steppes.

And then the light starts to dim, and neither of us move, and I feel the sudden warm pressure of Feyre’s hand on mine where it sits on the bench between us.

“Mor?” she whispers.

“Mmhmm?”

“Thanks.”

I turn towards her, and Feyre is _smiling_ , and that aching part of my heart overflows with a joy so great it’s almost painful. I can’t do anything but stare, and stare. The last beams of the setting sun gild her hair and catch in her eyes, which no longer harbor that hunted look I saw in them months ago. Her smile, crookedly pulling at one corner of her thin mouth more than the other, is uncertain and shy, it’s undeniably happy.

I want to kiss that smiling mouth.

I don’t, of course. Besides, it’s enough to just sit here with Feyre, to feel her hand resting on mine, to see her smiling – at _me_.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr [@birdiethebibliophile](birdiethebibliophile.tumblr.com)!


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